By Ramesh Subbaraman
The Union of Power and Gas Employees, UPAGE is in an important industry because energy is the lifeblood of the Singapore economy. Without electricity and reliable power supply, the city would have been very different today
Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong made these points when speaking to union leaders and employers from Singapore’s energy sector at UPAGE’s 20th Anniversary Dinner on 20 July 2015.
The union has nearly 5,000 members currently.
Role in Restructuring
PM Lee noted that one important thing which Singapore did was to restructure the energy sector. This has taken the nation 20 years to achieve, leading to today’s industry and supply being high quality, reliable and tip top.
He added: “The workers have benefitted because your wages are high, your productivity is higher and the industry has expanded. There are actually more jobs in the industry today than when we first started.
“But it has not been easy coming here because every round of restructuring is unsettling and painful. Sometimes there were retrenchments, changes to pay structures and certainly many changes to the way we worked.”
PM Lee stressed the journey has been successful because the government had the full cooperation, confidence and trust of UPAGE.
Paying Tribute
PM Lee also took the opportunity to pay tribute to several of UPAGE’ s leaders, among them the late Nithiah Nandan who fought for workers till the very end before he passed on.
Another leader was the first President of UPAGE, Rahman Mahbob, who rallied the support of workers for the power industry’s restructuring.
Turning to UPAGE’s current General Secretary RKS Nachiappan, PM Lee said he has carried the union forward, taking over the baton from the late Nithiah Nandan. The latter will be flowing on in August 2015.
Important Lessons
Addressing the gathering, Mr Nachiappan shared some lessons he has learnt in his more than 30 years of union life - among them, the need to accept change and embrace life-long learning.
The next lesson is the importance of union leaders and management building trust and confidence – which are at the heart of good labour- management relations.
“Today, the priority is to extend re-employment to 67, open up the scope of union representation to PMEs and press on with the Progressive Wage Model. Here we call on Singapore Power to take the lead and extend re-employment to 67", he added.
During the dinner, NTUC’s U Care Fund received a donation of $70,000 from UPAGE.
Source: NTUC This Week
